We’ll focus on the two new additions that I consider to be major with this update.

The bottom two lines in yellow are pretty big reveals.

Blessing of the Valar (BotV), Instant level 95 token

Coming soon the Lotro store is a token that allows you to auto level your character to 95, for the cost of 5995 Turbine Points. It’s pretty similar to the Gift of the Valar, which takes you to level 50 but for cheaper.

From observation, the BotV is getting a lot of mixed reaction from the community, with some saying Lotro’s content shouldn’t me missed as it’s the journey that counts vs the I’d buy it for alts argument. Righto.

My two cents, I think it’s a good idea. The timing couldn’t be worse however, and the price is simply ridiculous. Would I buy it? If I really, really, really needed another end-game toon and don’t have 15+ hours a week to level one from 1-95, I’d buy the idea, totally. Just not at that damn price. I’m very much in the ‘utility for alts camp’, and I feel that the BotV offers another option for players.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an advocate of skipping through the beauty of the journey through 8 years of Lotro content. Heck, I’ll even advise newer players to go through the whole game for the full experience. It then boils down to the player to use their best judgement if this is the way to go.

From and endgame perspective, players who know what they’re doing won’t have an issue, and other players who resent new players taking a short cut will just have to deal. Look, if the community is all that it says it is, help the new guy get their bearings instead of discriminating them, and hey Turbine gets some money to produce more content too. With the current state of Lotro, I would rather have a larger pool of end-game players, noobs included. They can be thought and molded in due time. No big deal.

Had I not struggled and got my Burglar to 93 recently, I supposed I would have bought this for him, if it was reasonably priced. I work 12-13 hours a day, 5 days a week. I’ve seen the entirety of Lotro from 1-100, three times over already. I would rather pay for the convenience and save hundreds of hours of my time. This is probably the main target audience for the BotV, although you’ll never hear Turbine say it. Never look a gift horse in the mouth eh, wherever the money comes from.

Remember that game that’s older than Lotro and has more subscribers, up in the millions? Yeah they sell this service too. Can you blame them? It’s more daunting to level from scratch in WoW than it is here, if you’re an altoholic. In fact, the last expansion even offered a token as part of the deal. Now here’s why I said the timing is poorly thought-out; a missed opportunity.

In my recent article on Minas Tirith and Update 17, I questioned why wasn’t there an expansion. If there was, the BotV included as a bundled reward. Wouldn’t that be cool? You never know, the expansion may just sell due to that allure, and for once it will give those suits and ties above Turbine a reason to believe in their dev team. So what if we already are at 100 and won’t use the BotV right away? We’d still get the expansion and now have a free pass to 95 for our alts.

You have an iconic location in this expansion, and you’ve just given new players a reason to get in game and work those 5 levels to get there. I know, I make it sound easy and realistically it’s difficult as 95 leaves you at Helms Deep, and you have to grind to 100 and prepare for Minas Tirith. Newer players will have to fork out additionally money to buy the three quest packs (or Sub!) and the HD expansion.

It’s just too bad how these things turned out in the end.

Last note on the price. Again, ridiculous. USD 99.9 gets you 6,250 Turbine Points. That’s 400 bucks where I come from! For comparison, WoW’s level up service costs you USD 60.

2. Crafting Stations for Housing

At long last, players can now craft in the comforts and nostalgia of their home for 495 Turbine Points. I believe there’s choices ranging from Oven, Workbench and Forge.

I think it’s decently priced and I’d get a Forge. What I can’t help but feel is that because this feature comes so late in the game’s lifespan, not many will care. And if they do, crafting halls and popular hubs become ghost towns again.

Okay I lied, one more thing I want to say. Specifically to the PvMP developer team. Get your heads out of your ale barrels and think outside of the pie boxes. Cyclically increasing morale pools and healing is not a Valar damn solution. Go to the Moors once in awhile. Play the game. Is it fun? If there is no interest in keeping PvMP as a fun competitive experience for the players, be transparent and say it so, feel the relief of that heavy weight off your shoulders, and return to focusing on giving us a memorable ring-destroying ending that we’ll be talking about for years to come.

Good stuff and as my server has now been opened for transfer I am looking forward to some LOTRO fun again… its been a long time.

I really think the jump to end content is a very useful idea to incorporate into the game at this stage (I can’t afford it as priced and probably wouldn’t buy one!) but as an aid to attract new blood to LOTRO I think its great! Yes the early content is the meat n veg of the game but unfortunately its a long, long, lonely road as the majority of active LOTRO’ing is at end game or thereabouts. SO enabling newer players to partake in the fun sounds positive… IN my opinion they will still need to grind(buy) traits and partake in the equipment trudge… so should be plenty of areas for TURBINE to rake in money off them without making the initial jump too expensive, and they are ore likely to keep doing this if involved in an active game rather than a slow grind which eventually rewards you with most of those would be purchases…

I am happy that the crafting got some love in U17 but it is still a long way from a perfect system and incentivisation to craft lower down the food tree would be nice as would a more active AH market for non end game stuff… up to lv30 crafting is nice and easy but it soon becomes a relatively unneeded chore…

In house crafting is just a small perk, a revamp of the housing as promised in the past would be much nicer.

Still not PVMP’ing and not inclined to start soon but maybe one day… general feedback from those that do is not very positive…

5 years in to LOTRO (with full time job, commute, wife and 2 kids) and I am still far from seeing it all and experiencing it all… my slow progression has made me miss out on many of the high points, especially when organising raids and experiencing group content for earlier areas is now tricky and trivial (when the only player willing to walk you through content is way too OP!)

The challenge that is still there is missed… the great gameplay bulldozered away… I would love to see some love to earlier areas and especially some way of experiencing the group content afresh. Like any antique it is worth treasuring…

Sorry about the long comment… maybe when I start LOTRO’ing again I will start to get my blogging going again too…

Excellent points Tsu and this is a blog post within a blog post! =D. Definitely agree that the BotV will play an integral part in roping in newer players, alongside returning ones as well.

And true with regard to the point on housing – I’d completely forgotten about the housing system revamp that was asked for consistently. Thinking about it, I’d have very much preferred an update to that instead. I can live without the crafting house stations, I usually am okay doing them wherever town I’m at.

On that last point regarding experiencing group content afresh, there must be away for Turbine to implement this. We already can scale players of all levels to 100 for Big Battles. I’m sure we can do the reverse when players run older content, ala Guild Wars 2 mentor/scaleable regions to help kinnies and friends. Whether Turbine has the resources and time to develop this or not is an entirely different question =p. But i’m all for it.

And no don’t apologise, I appreciate it! Looking forward to leaving one this long on your blog next time!

There are two angles at which the insta-level seems to be discussed; one is “should it be allowed”, which I personally find quite disconcerting. Really, are people saying someone should be denied an option because it’ll spoil *his* experience, not because it’ll spoil theirs? People worried about playing with someone who hasn’t mastered their class step by step I can understand (although with boost to 95, by 100 they’ll be as fine as anyone), but saying boosts shouldn’t be there because players would “miss the journey”? You are not their mommy.

As for the other question, “how useful is it going to be”, how about this: there are people who can play “with the game”, exploring the landscape, doing quests etc, and there are people whose main interest is playing with other people. For the latter group, the boost is essential, since it is easier to find a group at top level than at any other level. And then there is a possibility that they have friends who have been playing this game and have top level characters, and they want to play together now, not next year.

As for the price, idk… not considering getting one for myself, since I am definitely a “play with the game” type of person.

Appreciate the input! I’ve yet to come across the “should it be allowed”crowd but when I do I’m not sure I can hold back. I agree; whatever gives your the right to tell other players how they should play their MMO? Ridiculous.

Spot on with the latter point, it’s definitely going to be this reason why the BoTV will trump the Gift of the Valar, as the latter group is player base that fluctuates so very often. Not being able to get up to speed with friends is the most common barrier I’ve seen newer players complain about, within my kinship lately.

Thanks for summing this up so neatly! I’m a bit behind on the curve when it concerns Lotro. I also have been skipping your Minas Tirith post, not because I’m not interested, but because I don’t want to spoil myself. I’ll get there, one day! 😉